Investing.com - U.S. stock futures pointed to a modestly higher open on Thursday, as market players looked ahead to the busiest day of the corporate earnings season.
During early morning hours in New York, the blue-chip Dow futures tacked on 14 points, or 0.08%, the S&P 500 futures inched up 2 points, or 0.1%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 futures rose 9 points, or 0.2%.
General Motors (NYSE:GM) rallied more than 5% after reporting adjusted earnings per share of $1.29 in the second quarter, easily surpassing expectations for earnings of $1.06 per share.
Under Armour (NYSE:UA) saw shares rise 3.4% after the athletic apparel company reported better than expected second quarter earnings and revenue ahead of Thursday's opening bell.
U.S.-listed shares of Swiss bank Credit Suisse (SIX:CSGN) Group (NYSE:CS) spiked more than 7% after it posted second quarter profit that topped expectations.
SanDisk (NASDAQ:SNDK) and Logitech (NASDAQ:LOGI) also soared ahead of the open after upbeat quarterly earnings results.
On the downside, global construction equipment manufacturer Caterpillar (NYSE:CAT) saw shares fall 2.3% after reporting weaker than expected second quarter earnings.
Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM) dropped 1.6% after the chip maker delivered its third profit warning this year after Wednesday's closing bell announced plans to slash jobs and spending.
American Express (NYSE:AXP) declined 2.3% after posting a 5% drop in quarterly profit as a stronger dollar reduced revenue from markets outside the U.S.
After Thursday’s close of trading, Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN), AT&T (NYSE:T), Starbucks (NASDAQ:SBUX), Visa (NYSE:V) and Pandora Media (NYSE:P) are scheduled to report.
In deal news, Anthem (NYSE:ANTM) saw shares jump 3.8% after reports surfaced that it plans to acquire health-care company Cigna (NYSE:CI) in a deal valued at more than $48 billion. Cigna shares rose 3.7% ahead of the bell.
Meanwhile, gold producers, such as Barrick Gold (NYSE:ABX), looked set to rebound from recent losses as gold prices snapped a ten-day losing streak on Thursday to bounce off a five-year low.
U.S. data will also be in focus. The country is to release a weekly report on initial jobless claims at 8:30AM ET. The data is expected to show that jobless claims dropped to 280,000 last week from 281,000 in the preceding week.
Also at 8:30AM, the Chicago Fed national activity index for June is due, followed by a report on leading indicators in June at 10AM.
Data on Wednesday showed that existing home sales rose to an eight-and-a-half year high in June, boosting optimism over the health of the economy and supporting the case for a rate hike later this year.
U.S. existing home sales increased by 3.2% to 5.49 million units last month, compared to expectations for a 1.2% rise to 5.40 million units.
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